Can sweat damage your gun? I’ve been asked by multiple gun owners this month to write a post on how to keep sweat off your gun while carrying. For big guys like myself, in hot or cold weather, sweating is unavoidable while carrying. And with sweat around your concealed carry comes the potential of gun rust. For concealed carriers, gun rust from sweat is particularly nefarious.
Gun rust not only makes your gun less valuable and uglier, it also runs the risk of affecting its usage. A rusty slide is harder to rack, and a rusty trigger is harder to pull. In an emergency situation where you need your firearm, any hindrance to the operation of your firearm poses a severe threat to your life and the lives of those around you. If you can’t use your firearm due to gun rust from sweat to defend from a potential threat, your life is instantly put in harm’s way.
In this article, we cover the dangers that sweat poses to your gun, common causes of gun rust from sweat, different ways to keep sweat off your gun while carrying, and how to remove rust caused by concealed carry sweat from your gun. And for those interested in learning more regarding the effect of moisture to your firearms, read our piece on storing firearms in high humidity areas. Read on!
Table of Contents
The dangers of sweat to your gun
What causes gun rust from sweat?
How to prevent concealed carry sweat rust
How to get rust caused by concealed carry sweat off your gun
So can sweat damage your gun?
The dangers of sweat to your gun
When you sweat, your body emits a liquid concoction of urea, ammonia, and salt. Sounds like something you’d rub all over your gun? Probably not. That liquid concoction of sweat is left on your gun and the fabric surrounding your gun throughout the day as you sweat. When that sweat evaporates, the water goes away, but the dried traces of bacteria, dirt, and urea stay. This residue can be washed off, but if it isn’t it builds up in the crevices of your gun, and soaks into the fabric of your holster.
After weeks and months of carrying around your holstered gun without cleaning, the salt and other damaging leftover residue from this “concealed carry sweat“ begins to oxidize and corrode your gun. This corrosion is often discovered by gun owners when the damage has already been done – often rendering firearms completely unusable. Does this make you want to learn how to keep sweat off your gun while carrying yet?
A bit of an extreme situation…
What causes gun rust from sweat?
I’d love to be a smart aleck here and just say “sweat” – but I’ll give some additional details. To start, think about how you carry and treat your CCW. Most gun owners carry their concealed carry close to their bodies – IWB carry, OWB carry, appendix carry, etc. These methods of carry end up having your CCW pressed very close against your body, along with your holster.
Throughout the day, you walk around, sit down, get up, occasionally break into a jog, etc. Heat starts to generate, and your body starts to sweat. Sweat seeps into the fabric of your holster, and starts to slip into the cracks of your gun. When you get home, you take your holster off and lay it on your table (unless you home carry) with your gun still in it. The sweat evaporates, but the residue of the salt/bacteria/urea stays behind on your gun/in your holster, pressed up closely against your firearm.
In the beginning, sweat and sweat residue coming in contact with your gun might not have immediate negative effects as rusting from concealed carry sweat sometimes takes awhile to take effect (or can happen incredibly quickly). However, if the scenario described in the above paragraph is allowed to continue on an unchecked cycle, the dried sweat of your holster and on your gun eventually begins to corrode your firearm, leading to gun rust.
How to prevent concealed carry sweat rust
Wherever you are in the United States, learning and knowing how to keep sweat off your guns while carrying to prevent gun rust from sweat is crucial. In hotter, more humid locations, your body sweats more easily and the sweat tends to stay around all throughout the day. In colder regions, your CCW still ends up being susceptible to gun rust since it sits very close to your body and beneath your clothes. This causes your body heat to generate sweat that seeps into your gun and holster.
Sweat does different things to firearms for different people. Since everyone’s body is different, everyone’s sweat PH level is different. Gun owner A’s sweat may cause more damage to a gun than gun owner B’s sweat. However, in the long term, it is always extremely important to ensure that you do everything you possibly can to prevent gun rust from sweat. After all, a rusty gun is a gun that doesn’t work as well. And carrying a gun that doesn’t work well puts your life in danger.
Below, we’ve put together a list of 13 ways to keep sweat off your gun while carrying. This list will be continuously updated as we learn more and more ways to evade the ever lurking problem of gun rust from sweat.
Spray your gun with Eezox, a synthetic gun care spray that acts as a solvent, lubricant, and rust preventative. This gives your firearm rust protection throughout the day while carrying.
When you get home, don’t leave your gun in your holster. Your sweat residue in the fabric of your holster presses up against your gun, promoting gun rust from sweat.
Wipe down (with a silicone rag) and oil your firearm everyday after carrying. Performing this ritual every day may be annoying, but worth doing as it protects your gun from corrosion.
Carry a gun with treated with tenifer (like a Glock), cerakote, or melonite. These treatments offer your gun resistance against corrosion. Please note – your tenifer treated guns still have metal components that are not treated with tenifer/cerakote/melonite, that are susceptible to concealed carry sweat.
Leather absorbs the moisture from the atmosphere – including your sweat. Thus, using leather holsters promotes concealed carry gun rust. If you opt for leather holsters regardless, use leather holsters that are “finished” by acrylic sealer, which allows them to absorb less moisture. Also important to note: leather pressed up against your body tends to generate more heat (example: leather seats in a car). More heat usually equates to more sweat, which results in more gun sweat damage.
Switch your concealed carry method based on how you sweat. IWB carrying usually generate the most sweat for me, so I try to avoid IWB carrying to prevent sweat damage to my CCW.
Always air dry your holster after a day of usage, and regularly soak and clean it.
Use a Kydex holster. This allows you to simply wipe down your holster afterwards without needing to soak, clean, and wash it.
Use PH neutral protective wax to coat your firearm.
Coat your gun in CLP gun cleaner, which protects your gun from rust and corrosion.
Buy and use holsters with sweat guards. This additional part of your holster limits the contact your gun has with your body, limiting the amount of sweat that comes in contact with your firearm.
Carry your gun in a fanny pack. Yes – a little bit of a 90’s feel to it. However, this completely separates your gun from your body, preventing sweat from accumulating on it from concealed carrying.
Wear an undershirt to add an extra layer between your body and your gun, using the shirt to wick away sweat from touching your firearm.
How to get rust caused by concealed carry sweat off your gun
Now that you know how gun rust from sweat comes about and the dangers of concealed carry sweat, what happens if your gun has already corroded from your sweat? There are several steps you can take, depending on the damage done to your firearm, to reverse this gun rust.
Apply gun oil to the area of your CCW where most of the gun rust is located. Let it sit and marinate for a bit so the rust can begin to loosen from your gun. Afterwards, scrub it gently but firmly with an AP brush.
Use steel wool (0000/very fine) or a ScothBrite pad to brush and remove the rust. Don’t use hard steel wool. The hard steel wool may end up removing the finish of your gun and cause additional undesired damage. NEVER use a brush/wool that is more abrasive than your gun.
Separate the polymer components of your gun from the steel components while cleaning.
Use a copper/brass brush to remove rust and sediments collected on steel components. While cleaning, these rust, dirt, and salt particles will become embedded in your brush. Thus, after every few scrapes, shake out the particles from the brush.
Allow all your gun components to sit and dry after cleaning before reassembling.
So can sweat damage your gun?
Yes – gun rust from sweat is very damaging to your gun. It is crucial to keep sweat off your gun while carrying because that sweat eventually corrodes your gun over time and leads to lower operational efficiency, which puts your life in danger when you need to use your gun quickly but cannot due to gun rust damage. Don’t let this happen to you – follow the steps laid out in this article and prevent concealed carry sweat from damaging your firearm.
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Can Sweat Damage Your Gun? How to Keep Sweat Off Your Gun While Carrying
Can sweat damage your gun? I’ve been asked by multiple gun owners this month to write a post on how to keep sweat off your gun while carrying. For big guys like myself, in hot or cold weather, sweating is unavoidable while carrying. And with sweat around your concealed carry comes the potential of gun rust. For concealed carriers, gun rust from sweat is particularly nefarious.
Gun rust not only makes your gun less valuable and uglier, it also runs the risk of affecting its usage. A rusty slide is harder to rack, and a rusty trigger is harder to pull. In an emergency situation where you need your firearm, any hindrance to the operation of your firearm poses a severe threat to your life and the lives of those around you. If you can’t use your firearm due to gun rust from sweat to defend from a potential threat, your life is instantly put in harm’s way.
In this article, we cover the dangers that sweat poses to your gun, common causes of gun rust from sweat, different ways to keep sweat off your gun while carrying, and how to remove rust caused by concealed carry sweat from your gun. And for those interested in learning more regarding the effect of moisture to your firearms, read our piece on storing firearms in high humidity areas. Read on!
Table of Contents
The dangers of sweat to your gun
What causes gun rust from sweat?
How to prevent concealed carry sweat rust
How to get rust caused by concealed carry sweat off your gun
So can sweat damage your gun?
The dangers of sweat to your gun
When you sweat, your body emits a liquid concoction of urea, ammonia, and salt. Sounds like something you’d rub all over your gun? Probably not. That liquid concoction of sweat is left on your gun and the fabric surrounding your gun throughout the day as you sweat. When that sweat evaporates, the water goes away, but the dried traces of bacteria, dirt, and urea stay. This residue can be washed off, but if it isn’t it builds up in the crevices of your gun, and soaks into the fabric of your holster.
After weeks and months of carrying around your holstered gun without cleaning, the salt and other damaging leftover residue from this “concealed carry sweat“ begins to oxidize and corrode your gun. This corrosion is often discovered by gun owners when the damage has already been done – often rendering firearms completely unusable. Does this make you want to learn how to keep sweat off your gun while carrying yet?
A bit of an extreme situation…
What causes gun rust from sweat?
I’d love to be a smart aleck here and just say “sweat” – but I’ll give some additional details. To start, think about how you carry and treat your CCW. Most gun owners carry their concealed carry close to their bodies – IWB carry, OWB carry, appendix carry, etc. These methods of carry end up having your CCW pressed very close against your body, along with your holster.
Throughout the day, you walk around, sit down, get up, occasionally break into a jog, etc. Heat starts to generate, and your body starts to sweat. Sweat seeps into the fabric of your holster, and starts to slip into the cracks of your gun. When you get home, you take your holster off and lay it on your table (unless you home carry) with your gun still in it. The sweat evaporates, but the residue of the salt/bacteria/urea stays behind on your gun/in your holster, pressed up closely against your firearm.
In the beginning, sweat and sweat residue coming in contact with your gun might not have immediate negative effects as rusting from concealed carry sweat sometimes takes awhile to take effect (or can happen incredibly quickly). However, if the scenario described in the above paragraph is allowed to continue on an unchecked cycle, the dried sweat of your holster and on your gun eventually begins to corrode your firearm, leading to gun rust.
How to prevent concealed carry sweat rust
Wherever you are in the United States, learning and knowing how to keep sweat off your guns while carrying to prevent gun rust from sweat is crucial. In hotter, more humid locations, your body sweats more easily and the sweat tends to stay around all throughout the day. In colder regions, your CCW still ends up being susceptible to gun rust since it sits very close to your body and beneath your clothes. This causes your body heat to generate sweat that seeps into your gun and holster.
Sweat does different things to firearms for different people. Since everyone’s body is different, everyone’s sweat PH level is different. Gun owner A’s sweat may cause more damage to a gun than gun owner B’s sweat. However, in the long term, it is always extremely important to ensure that you do everything you possibly can to prevent gun rust from sweat. After all, a rusty gun is a gun that doesn’t work as well. And carrying a gun that doesn’t work well puts your life in danger.
Below, we’ve put together a list of 13 ways to keep sweat off your gun while carrying. This list will be continuously updated as we learn more and more ways to evade the ever lurking problem of gun rust from sweat.
How to get rust caused by concealed carry sweat off your gun
Now that you know how gun rust from sweat comes about and the dangers of concealed carry sweat, what happens if your gun has already corroded from your sweat? There are several steps you can take, depending on the damage done to your firearm, to reverse this gun rust.
So can sweat damage your gun?
Yes – gun rust from sweat is very damaging to your gun. It is crucial to keep sweat off your gun while carrying because that sweat eventually corrodes your gun over time and leads to lower operational efficiency, which puts your life in danger when you need to use your gun quickly but cannot due to gun rust damage. Don’t let this happen to you – follow the steps laid out in this article and prevent concealed carry sweat from damaging your firearm.